Saskatoon players take their best shots at football robot

He’s the perfect football player, in so many ways: Energetic, obedient, tough, doesn’t waste time with trash-talk and locker-room drama.

He takes a hit and bounces right up; has been clocked as fast as 4.7 seconds over 40 yards. He’ll never pull a hamstring. Oh, and he’s got a three-year warranty, because he’s a robotic tackling dummy.

“It’s faster and probably more elusive than most actual players,” Saskatoon Hilltops’ defensive lineman Tom Schnitzler said Friday after pursuing the remote-controlled robot — dubbed the Mobile Virtual Player, or MVP — all over SMF Field during a demo. “It can cut on a dime. It’s hard to tackle, actually. It’s looking like a very useful piece of technology.”

The robots are designed to cut down on concussions and injuries. Instead of hitting each other during practice, players pound the MVP.

Saskatoon businessman and philanthropist David Dube purchased a half-dozen of the MVPs, which were launched commercially in January of this year.

They cost $8,295 each, in American dollars. Dube estimates the Canadian cost came to $12,000 to $13,000 each, once you factor in shipping and moving them across a border.

Two of the MVPs Dube purchased are being used by the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats, who couldn’t get high enough up the waiting list and asked if he could help them out. In return, they’ll purchase three for Dube next year, one of which he’ll donate to Hamilton minor football. The other two will be given to user groups, most likely in western Canada.

Another robot, the 47th off the line, was battered about by a handful of players Friday during its Saskatoon debut at SMF Field, where it’s available for use by local teams free of charge.

The MVP was invented by engineers out of Dartmouth College. The football coach there, Buddy Teevens, runs tackle-free practices. Players coming to Dartmouth, he’s said, will never hit each other.

Several years ago, Teevens envisioned a moving tackling dummy, and he took the idea to engineering students at Dartmouth. After starts and stops, then-Dartmouth football player Elliot Kasner and rugby player Quinn Connell — both engineers — forged ahead, and made it work.

Seventeen NFL teams have put it through its paces, as have several college programs. Teevens has said that injuries and concussions are down substantially on his own team. Stephen Colbert tackled one on the Late Show.

“It’s essentially got the power of a small vehicle, housed in the framework of a tackling dummy,” Connell, who is now the director of engineering at Mobile Virtual Player LLC, said Friday via phone. “It’s almost 200 pounds, and moves across the field at 18 miles an hour. There’s a lot of capability packed in there.”

“The applications, we’re quickly finding, are endless,” Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin told steelers.com. “It never gets tired, it runs at an appropriate football speed, all the position groups are given an opportunity to use it. It’s funny; you put it on the field and watch the guys, and they show you the applications. They say ‘hey; get it to do this.’ ”

Connell says they’ll eventually engineer artificial intelligence, and he envisions a day when there’s a full robotic practice squad, running plays and working in concert.

“It’s really interesting, some of these forward-looking coaches, using it in ways we had never envisioned,” Connell says. “The first day it went out on the field, it was a tackling dummy. The second day, it was a receiver. The third day, it was a quarterback. It’s been used to simulate any position on the field. And not only does it provide a way to practice contact without putting your own players at risk, but it gives coaches a high level of control over the training environment. They’re controlling it; they’re moving it around, almost like they’re in the mind of a player on the field and they can make it do what they want.”

Dube’s wife, Heather Ryan, attended Dartmouth. He’s watched the MVP moved through the prototype stage into its current form. He’s made trips out there to see it work, and he says the current, commercially-available robot is by far the best.

“Football’s taken so much negative press about head injuries and otherwise, and these things save so much wear and tear on the bodies,” said Dube, a former football player with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies. “Practice versus game is five-to-one, so if you can utilize this, it’s going to make a better experience.”

The robot, powered by a rechargeable battery, comes with a switch that lets it move between grass and artificial-turf fields. It’s been tested at below-freezing temperatures, though it will be interesting to see how it handles Saskatchewan in late autumn.

Based on predictive testing, engineers expect the robot to have a lifespan of five or six years.

Its use isn’t restricted to football. Connell says they’ve also heard from one NHL team interested in the possibilities.

“We’ve had a few prototypes running around on the field with baseball teams, basketball, soccer and lacrosse,” Connell says. “We have a few units that have shipped out to rugby teams across the country. We even have some versions with studded tires that work well for ice hockey.

“At this point, we could fill an order for a studded-tire version if a (hockey) team wanted to invest in that. There’s no problem too large.”

Meanwhile, back in Saskatoon, Dube will watch his latest philanthropic purchase with great interest. He figures it will have an impact on the local football scene, at both the grassroots and elite levels.

“We were trying to figure out how long it’s going to take until you have those, and people sitting in the stands, and it’s its own football game,” Dube said with a laugh, gesturing to the robot. “It’s going to happen, at some point.”

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